Want to save money on this so want to get some advices first. It's pretty much just a piece of rubber, I mean, what can go wrong? And then my friend told me, old tyres may be regrooved or retreaded to look new. So what should I look for when inspecting the tyre?
Buying 2nd Hand Tyres Things to Check
justwii on 21/12/2023 - 03:19
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You get a little thing called a RWC with a second hand car, it specifically ensures the tyres are in good nick.
The point is not all second hand tyres need demonising.
Not all new tyres are safer than quality second hand ones.
Some people can't afford the new safest options , so there's a raft of other options including second hand.
Do your due diligence, don't expect website opinion to come to your rescue when the advice turns out to be useless. Especially after the event
Anyone who says they wouldn't buy second hand tires is either a liar or never purchased a used vehicle. I always ask if they drove their second hand car directly to the tire shop for 4 new tires after buying it.
I said the same earlier. Hypocrisy.
Replace rubber with stone, worked for the Flintstones
Happening to buy tyres that someone had „regrooved“ is akin to getting drugs in your Halloween candy. It’s not worth doing for any party.
I second all the comments, saying do not skimp on tyres.
I have also done, plenty of times, what posters above have suggested. I’ve bought second hand
wheels from people who have bought new BMWs and replaced the rims and tyres. You get a bargain on almost a brand new set.FYI BMW pattern is the same as Holden, but ensure you get a similar profile tyre.
I'd check the manufacturing date on the sidewall - if more than say 4-5 years old i'd avoid them.
I've bought second hand all terrain tyres as they're a dime a dozen and saved a fair whack.
However i rarely use them.if using them everyday i'd just buy something off the shelf, even some of the chnese brands (WIinrun) are doing well and for not much more installed than a set of secondhand car tyres
I'd recommend researching what popular new car has the same wheel/tyre combination (offset, width, x factor, tyre profile ETC) as your car (or just look for your cars combination if it's a newer model), then just look on FB marketplace or Gumtree for people selling wheel/tyre sets due to them buying aftermarket. You can get whole sets with very little kms put on them for a steal. The great thing is that they are often good brands and good tyres as they are OEM. With everything second-hand, there is no 100% guarantee they are perfect.
It always astounds me how stupid people can be, willing to put their life more at risk to save a few bucks.
It's pretty much just a piece of rubber
Mostly correct - there is a woven steel mesh in there too. Oh, and the rubber is sourced, blended, manufactured and vulcanised to high specification standards, with highly optimised tread patterns embedded to maximise your grip on the road in all conditions, save you money on fuel, could save your life, and may save you from paying your excess when the uninsured driver next to you merges blindly in front of you without indicating and brakes hard.
Used tyres may be ok, but Regrooved or Retread are TOTALLY different to just buying good brand used tyres though.
You do you though.
You don't have to spend a fortune though — put your tyre sizing spec here and we can give you good value suggestions.
I've done it before, just make sure they have tread and that they fit them correctly. I had to get mine re-balanced because they didnt balance them properly and you could hear a lot of noise on the freeway.
I still remember about the family who had an accident when I used to work at ICU Royal north shore. Car flipped over and just "made it" to second lyfe because 1 tyre exploded. Culprit? Second hand tyres.
Never, I will never take risk. But this is just me. Good luck.
But lets not forget even new tyres do this. Pirelli, Bridgestone, Goodyear all have a history of random failures.
Do not ever buy 2nd hand: tyres - tubes(!!!) - seat belts - helmets
Aged tyres perish - tyre fitters will not fit them.
Yes, that's why old tyre stock piles magically vanish after a couple of years .s/
Many tyre fitters WILL fit second hand tyres.( Money talks) . Of course they would prefer you bought marked up newbies, but they are tyre sellers fitters, not arbiters of other ppls personal choice.Plenty of tyre places 'won't' fit dodgy tyres consumers bring to them, but if they can't make a judgement about used tyres, then their opinion is not worth trusting anyway.
We owe to the environment to reuse legal safe reusable tyres.I agree about the seatbelt helmet thing, but if an individual chooses to do it, and nobody else is using them in a vehicle/ on a bike/m-bike , it's at their risk.
If you can't fit and balance them yourself it is hard to save money, as the fitting/balancing/disposal cost makes up a substantial proportion of the total cost.
I spent some time trying to get some cheap ones to have spares for a scout group khanacross car, but it just didn't make sense unless you could find one already on a suitable rim.
Also discovered when people on gumtree say a tyre has 50% tread left they seem not mean half the original depth, more like the tyre is 50% bald/50% illegal but still has tread.You can save money if you cancel your insurance too .. combine that with cheap used \ second hand tyres and you're basically being paid to do it if you think about it.
Had retreads on my 1st car. Hit the brakes in the rain, slid right through a red light. Luckily no crash. Don't cheap out on tyres!
ABS?
No. No computers at all :D
Then that factor you (the way you drive.Reaction etc) ,your brake condition,road contaminants,speed and brake pressure could have contributed to 90% of the skidding.
It was wet,you were approaching an orange light. Retreaded tyres are the least of other road users risk.
No. No computers at all :D
ECU's came out in cars a damn long time ago.
@CurlCurl: Not all of us here are spring chickens. My first car didn't even have a radio other than the transistor that I dangled from the rear view mirror.
Not all of us here are spring chickens. My first car didn't even have a radio other than the transistor that I dangled from the rear view mirror.
Tell me about it. My first car was a 1952 Holden.
I had a fleet car, only did 70k in 6 years. But tyres were bad, rock hard and not soft.
Was no real issue, ended up doing a wheel and tyre deal as hated the steelies.
Just call around and know the exact size tyre that you want.
You'd be surprised the difference in price in tyre shops. I called dozens as a mystery shopper for beaurepairs as the client.
Its just a piece of rubber…. the piece of rubber keeping you and whoever is in your car on the road. Don't be a tight ass when it comes to rubber or brakes. Skimp elsewhere or catch public transport.
I bought winter tires when I was living in Canada and 2 of them had holes in them. I repaired them and was. But something to consider.
I bought 4x Michelin pilot sport 4 for $100 each off a tyre shop which had put an ad up on Facebook marketplace. They told me they were 95% new and had just come off a new porsche.
That was 3 years ago and I'm still alive to this day. None of the mechanics I've been to for services or rego checks have raised any concerns about them.
Yea well their not getting down on their knees to read the date code on your tyres , but if you’re going to do it that’s what you need to be able to do , read the four numbers in the oblong circle.
First two numbers are the week , as in a year has 52 so a number between 01 and 52 , and the last two digits are the year of manufacture .
If it’s over 5 years old most tyre shops won’t fit them to your car .
Best to get them under a year or two old so you can safely get a couple of years out of them if needs be .
I wouldn’t recommend it but if you go down this path you should really let the passengers know what a great deal you got to save a couple of bucks , maybe let them know how you had a really good look inside them to make sure there were no patches from screws ect and no cracks in the sidewall or tread .In fact you sound like the kinda young fella who could get a job at one of those fancy wheely joints , If you last a week you could buy a new set and not have to think about it again for a long while.
The End
I'd rather buy some good used Michelins than many of the brand new crap out there
Definitely don't get a whole set.
Only worth it if one of your tyres need replacing, after the others have gone through half of the tread or something
Once you factor in the price of removing the old tyres and disposal, then fitting and balancing for each new tyre (all of which is included when you buy tyres new from a shop). It doesn't work out much cheaper to go second hand and you'll have less life out of them
LI previously bought a pair of Yokohama tyres from a tyre shop as used but they were pretty much new, still had those rubber hairs on the tyres so must have come off a new car or the car was written off soon after they were bought. I can feel the difference between these used Yokohama vs new Chinese tyres I had in the past as well.
So nothing wrong with buying used tyres as long as you get fairly new ones and especially good quality brands that would have cost 3x the Chinese brands. Would you rather have 90% new Continental/Michellin or 100% new Winrun/Sailun/etc Chinese tyres?
Never buy 2nd hand Tyres not worth the hassle.
Why bother wasting money on tyres when you can drive on your rims, they're round also…
Air is cheaper than rubber.
You should have jumped on the Mycar 50% off sale
If you are just doing burnouts at some car event, that would be fine.
Op has to tell us what car they are going on, this makes a big difference IMO
Choose a good brand, they seem to wear less imo. Look for brand new with stickers and wear marker/lines intact. Tread should be close to new. Just google to find a pic of the new tyre to compare. Then next thing is the age as other's pointed out. Probably only want two years max. Rubber should be black and soft vs oxidized/brown and hard. Also probably need fitting and balancing.
Ozbargain OP's are a special breed of people.
Lol you are insane thinking that buying second hand tyres is a good idea 🤣
There is nothing wrong with second hand tyres. Its amazing how fearful people are on here, i and many others i know have been buying second hand tyres for 30 years without any issues or deaths.
I get them for $40 each with 80 to 90% tread from wreckers. All big brands like Bridgestone etc. They charge $10 per tyre to fit so thats a total of $100 for 2 tyres (i usually get 2 at a time).
As others have said if you buy a second hand car you are getting second hand tyres…most people don't but a brand new set of tyres as soon as they buy a car.
Poor man pays twice.
Personally i would look for the age of the tyre there should be a data stamp e.g. 16/23 16=week 2023=year, I would stay away from anything that's older then 1 year.
And tread should be over 95% remaining
Regards to your friends comments, I doubt anyone is retreading tyre's in Australia, man hour cost alone would be too high, you would be trying to making something that is already in surplus.
Man. So many negative people in here.
For the last 6 years I've always got my tires off Gumtree or FB Marketplace, and paid a tire place $25 to fit them.
Most of the time the tires are brand new, as the previous owner bought a new car and fit off-road tires onto it straight away, selling the factory ones.
Most of the posts - I knew a guy that bought a 2nd hand boat once, 20 years later, bam!! he had cancer.
Anyone know if any 'name-brand company' sell 2nd hand tyres? Will likely need to replace the spares tyre which I can't recall the last time it was used :/.
Just go to your nearest name-brand tyre shop and ask
I pretty much only buy 2nd hand tyres now. I simply get Hilux take off's 500km or so with rims for arround $750 a set of fb market place then sold my old set with average tread for $400.
Check age and check wear
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True, probably many of them driving around on tyres that have done 30k plus. But they bought them new!